Quotations from a great butterfly garden article:

I'm going to "cut" that list Art and paste it in my Butterfly folder.
Thanks for the list.
Sidney

In my listing above, I forgot the single best plant I have in my yard for attracting butterflies, Schefflera 'Nova' (Schefflera actinophylla). In my plant files description I note the following (and more). The link is to a photo of the plant. http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/72788/

"I took a cutting of this plant at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL Specifically because the sign noted it was a good butterfly attractor (they were trimming the plants that day.) They were not kidding. It is by far the single best butterfly attractor in my yard.
It blooms here in S. Florida February through late December or when the first cold snap hits. The flowers are small white clusters of up to six or seven clusters on a single shoot coming up from a mature leaf grouping. The clusters of small flowers form a "landing pad" for butterflies. Once they have landed on the cluster of small flowers they can feed from a bunch of flowers without hardly moving.
Mine are outdoors and grow well in direct sun and mostly shade. They flower well in either environment.
It is an evergreen plant with attractive, shiny, leaves to about 10". Mine backs up to a concrete wall so it's not adverse to concrete."

Art, that is an interesting plant. I've never seen it or heard of it before. I'm thinking it probably doesn't grow in my area. Please take some pics this year of it. I have Frostweed that is similar, large green leaves and small white flowers (landing pads) on top.

KKB, I have not seen this plant for sale at any nursery I have visited this past year. I did find in researching the plant it's forbidden to grow the plant in Dade County (Miami) area. I have given away dozens of them. I will cut one for you when the porterweeds I have started for you, begin growing. The worst that can happen is it doesn't make it through the winter next year. They grow so fast that you will have flowers in a few months then up until it gets cold.
The plant was growing in Orlando, which is probably zone 8. I know they have freezes there.

Art

No, Orlando is zone 9b. Karen

No, Orlando is zone 9b. And plantscout says it is hardy only to 9b. Karen (unhappily in 9a)

9b is less hardy than 9a, me thinks.
Art, I'd like to try one. Just put one of those puppies aside for me and I'll get down to pick it up one of these days.;)
Sidney

Some xcellent resources, you guys!! thanks ..

I believe it's the other way around, sidney: 9b is a hardier zone than 9a!! We're 'essentially' located within the 6b zone - however, the elevation actually puts us in the 6a (colder) zone (less hardy)!!

- Magpye


This message was edited Feb 18, 2006 4:17 PM

I'm sure you are right,, I get confused easily. I am still happy to try this obvious fast grower as we seldom get more than a night or two below 30 here about 100 miles north of The Villages. If the Butterflies love em so do I.
I have Brugs that are blooming now and out of a dozen only 3 sustained any damage. The leaves were wimp/limp, but the flowers on the same stalks are opening. By golly, I love Florida.
Sidney

Yup the a is colder than the b.

Sidney, I am sending some stuff to Jeremy on Tuesday. If I send along a cutting, would you be able to pick it up from him. If it's a problem I will just send one or two to you.

These bushes grow very easy from cuttings. If you drop a piece you have trimmed off the bush. It will grow from just lying on the ground. They are the true "no brainer" bushes.

By the way, the whole point of the zone 8 thingie was to note they came from Universal Studios, Orlando.

Art

Thank you so much Art! That's so very sweet. I've got one Porterweed that came up late from seed in a pot in my bathroom. I'm desperately trying to keep it alive. It's just a stick with some leaves on top and not very pretty, but it's alive! I'm hoping it's from the coral one I had last year.

Texas has had such warm weather this "winter" but I wasn't sure what kind of cold the Porterweed could take, so I kept taking it out and then bringing it inside. We are having one of our late cold spells (25 degrees now) and I think even the bathroom is cold for it so I'll move it on top of a bookshelf, out of the cats reach.

Let me know if there's something I might have that you would like, although you sound like you have everything!

KKB, looking for information on the porterweeds, it seems what I have found indicates the native florida porterweed (Stachytarpheta jamaicensis) which is blue, has the best range. It grows well from 11 through zone 8. All the others show scattered results which seem unreliable.

Providing my cuttings take, I will send all the colors I have, including the native blue which I just got from a cutting late in December. If they make it through the winter good. If not try you can try to watch for seed development for the following years.

Some members of our garden club have them growing five or six feet tall. Mine have never gotten that big, yet, but I have been moving mine around trying to get them in a spot they like so they can grow tall.

Actually as far as a butterfly attractor, I find they are just fair at best. From the pictures I have seen you post, you have better luck attracting butterflies than I do. Don't get me wrong, I do have my share of butterflies, but some of your pictues show many butterflies at a time on your plants, much more than I ever get on the flowers I have.
A good example of this is the swallowtails pictures I have seen you post. I don't have swallowtails that stop for nectar here. They only stop for my larvae plants. Every so often I see one stop on a plant here or there, but not on a regular basis. I have a theory that the Easterly wind that dominates my yard is a factor in keeping them at bay. If there is a period of say three or four days without the Easterly wind, I have many more butterflies than normal.

Oh well, I keep trying new things hoping that one day I will have a constant stream of butterflies as others seem to have.

Art

There are days when I do have a lot of butterflies and then there are the other 80% where there are just a few at a time. The Queens and the Monarchs are the only ones that come in groups. I will get maybe 3-4 Giant Swallowtails at once for a while too. What attracts them in groups is the masses of zinnias.

My Eastern Black Swallowtails do the same thing tho! They come and lay eggs then they rarely return. I know when I see one they are looking for the fennel. On the otherhand, I have the Pipevine's that will come to nectar but I don't have any pipevine for their eggs. (hopefully that will be taken care of soon!) I might get 2 of them at the same time.

I love the groups, but it's usually the one little obscure one that I get so excited about and spend time trying to get some pics of. I love the Buckeye's!

The one and only Morning Cloak I've ever seen in my yard and in person, was on my water fountain, dead. That was really weird! I thought it was kind of neat tho that it made it's last stop here.

This is the best pic I could find of my coral Porterweed. It's about 4 ft tall.

KKB, you have more flowers in that patch than I have in my whole yard. I guess I will have to put in lots more flowers.

So far my efforts have been geared to "block" out my neighbors to the North and South and cover up a 5' wall that runs the entire 200 feet along my East border.

Then I had to replace the trees lost to the hurricanes. That done, I have time to concentrate on filling in with flowers.

In doing these projects I chose to find and plant as many native plants as I could get my hands on. With our extreme weather here in zone 10, the natives hold up much better than store bought plants, even when nurseries note they are native. I prefer to get my natives in the wild.

My passion is growing plants from cuttings, so getting results takes me more time than it does most gardeners that buy plants. The fruits of my labor won't show up until late spring.

Thanks to threads like this one, I have many good options to choose from when I finally get out there and buy plants. I did find a mist flower in Wallmart last week, but the plants were missing the information describing the variety. It doesn't look as large as the one's you pictured in another thread but they are larger than the native Floss flowers I currently have growing.

Today is a holiday so I will get a chance to get out and get some Zinneas.

Art

Just wandering thru old watched threads this morning.
After all this time I decided to find out what porterweed was.
Yeah i know it's in the PF.. sm giggle

I found the last paragraph in the answer part under the description to be worth a large smile.... on my part. As I picture the determined DGer escorting her/his plant indoors for the chilly nights, or weeks as the case may be.

re-visiting the lists and links as always. did make a bird bath out of a large ?saucer? whatever from a really large resin pot. True it needed filling everyday but then the birds found it quite adequate.

Bet the butterflies will like a smaller version of the same with the prescribed ingredients in it.
~Blooms

Oh fer hevens sake - I forgot the link to the artickle on porterweed with it's q&a paragraph.
http://www.emilycompost.com/porterweed.htm

This message was edited Mar 26, 2006 1:02 PM

I've got one of the two Spicebush Trees I bought last fall planted in the berry garden, but have to find a location for the other one. Not exactly xeriscape plants, but the nursery guy showed me two caterpillars and those cuties were so amazing I couldn't help it. So I came home with the cats and now the plants are leafing out, I'm hoping for more this year.

What is that Cat?

Linda-
What a cutie pie he is!
-T

That cat looks like a Spicebush Swallowtail cat. Please note, this is not my picture.
Art